Trellick Tower is one of the most celebrated — and once most reviled — pieces of social housing in Britain. Designed by the Hungarian-born architect Ernő Goldfinger, it stands 98 metres tall in North Kensington with a detached service tower connected to the main block by enclosed bridges at every third floor. The separation of the lift shaft and services into a distinct vertical element was both structurally logical and architecturally bold — the gap between the two towers is the building's most memorable detail.
Built as council housing for the London Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, Trellick Tower suffered a difficult reputation in the 1970s and 80s — crime, neglect, and the failure of the management that Goldfinger had assumed would care for it. Now Grade II* listed and privately owned by many of its residents, it has been fully rehabilitated. The brutalism that was once blamed for social failure is now an asset.